by E M Lindsey
“I just want to be on the same page,” Antoine said, and he leaned into Fitz’s palm in a way that seemed almost unconscious, like he was starving for touch. Fitz brushed his thumb along Antoine’s cheekbone and knew he shouldn’t like the way Antoine all but melted into such a simple gesture. “And I think we should find the boys before we get started with…anything.”
Fitz chuckled, and he leaned in, unable to stop himself from nuzzling his nose against Antoine’s. He liked him, he liked the two halves of him that warred between soft and sharp. He liked that Antoine wanted to give in and take, but wouldn’t let himself. It would make it that much more satisfying, that much more beautiful, when he crumbled beneath Fitz’s hands later.
“Okay,” he whispered, tightening his grip on Antoine, feeling him shudder. He dragged his lips along Antoine’s jaw, then pulled back. “Later.” It was a vow, a promise, and he saw Antoine feel the weight of it in the way his pupils dilated.
Taking several steps back, Fitz shoved a hand in his pocket and surreptitiously pinched his thigh to will his erection away. “We should go find the boys and get Dmitri set up with Ronan for his community service.”
Antoine nodded, then followed Fitz back into the cabin, then out the front door. “I still feel bad about him having to do that.”
“Actions have consequences,” Fitz reminded him. He pulled the little squiggly plastic hair-band his sister had given him that looked like a spiral notebook binder out of his bun, re-gathered it in his hands, then twisted it into a knot. The air was thick and humid, but there were no clouds anywhere to provide relief from the sun’s heavy rays. He wasn’t sure anymore if the twinge he felt in his scars was psychosomatic or not, but that never did go away, even after therapy.
“You sound like,” Antoine said, then stopped abruptly as they stepped off the porch.
Fitz turned toward him with a raised brow. “I sound like what?”
Antoine flushed heavily and refused to meet his gaze. “You sound like you know from personal experience. And yes, I’m an asshole. I’m aware.”
Fitz held back a chuckle. “Yeah, you are. But you’re not wrong. I’m just glad Dmitri’s mistake didn’t cost anyone more than a couple of fractured ribs.” And really, he hated knowing Antoine was hurt, but Antoine didn’t seem like he was interested in punishing anyone for it.
After a beat of tense silence, Fitz sighed and resumed his walk toward the trees. He knew where the boys had gone—a small clearing behind the tree line which led to a fire pit. Ronan hired a cement company right after taking over as station manager, and he’d ordered a molded series of low benches and fire pit. A lot of the teens in Cherry Creek snuck down there during the slow months to light fires and get stoned, and Fitz knew Ronan turned a blind eye to it most of the time.
None of their little group could judge. There was a time during their teenage years the Sheriff was convinced they’d grow up to be nothing more than a drain on society, and sometimes Fitz thought it was a shame that old man died before he could see what they’d all become.
He glanced behind him to see Antoine just a few steps away, then he pushed forward through the trees and saw Owen sitting with his back to the bench, poking a stick through a pile of ashes. Dmitri was a little further away, and neither of them were talking, but they weren’t on their phones either which was progress.
“Ronan’s out doing rounds right now, but you should go wait for him in his office,” Fitz said, and Dmitri shot to his feet.
“I still think it’s bullshit that he got in trouble,” Owen said. “I mean, if people would just fucking look where they were going…”
“Don’t,” Fitz warned in a low voice.
Dmitri was pink in the cheeks, and he had a hand pushed through his short hair. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.” He hurried off, and Fitz debated about going after him, but Dmitri was the one kid there he didn’t worry about shirking responsibility.
“Why do you feel like you need to go to war for him?” Fitz asked. He took a seat, then tried not to startle when Antoine settled next to him.
Owen, who was determinedly not looking his way, shrugged. “His life sucks. Why do we need to make it worse?” He glanced up and met Antoine’s gaze. “You didn’t need to press charges. It was a fucking graze. And you were on your phone.”
“Owen,” Fitz said again, but Antoine shook his head.
“I was on my phone. But he was going too fast and driving too close to the curb.” Antoine bowed his head.
“If you had been paying attention,” Owen started, and that’s when Fitz saw Antoine’s eyes go hard.
“What if it was a kid who tripped off the curb? Or a disabled person? Or an old person?”
Owen’s jaw went tight.
“What if my phone was in my pocket but I twisted my ankle and slipped? He still would have hit me.” Antoine took in a breath, like he was trying to calm himself. “People make mistakes.”
“But no one is free from consequences,” Fitz finished. “I made a dumbass mistake when I was about your age. And I live with that for the rest of my life.”
Owen turned his gaze away, and Fitz knew he was struggling. “It’s not the same thing.”
“No,” Antoine admitted. “I should have stopped walking when I was on my phone, but the reason he hit me was because he was driving recklessly. I think he learned that lesson—and so did I.”
Owen stood up and swiped his hands over the backs of his jeans. “You were barely even hurt! God, you two are such assholes.”
When he stormed off, Antoine started to rise, but Fitz grabbed him by the wrist and gently tugged him back down. “I don’t know if it’s teenage hormones, or if there’s some shit going on he hasn’t told me or his mom about, but he’s not usually like this.”
Antoine shrugged. “I was that age once. I was tired, and I was angry. I was sick of my parents, and even kind of sick of my brother. Everything felt hopeless.”
Fitz nodded, because he knew that far too well. He’d gone through all the stages of frustration and self-hate and fear after he recovered from the fire. He stared at the mirror for hours, at his scars, at the way his hand didn’t want to move, at how he couldn’t lift his arm higher than his chest. There wasn’t a style of clothing that would hide what happened to him. There was no way to undress and be touched—even in the pitch black—without someone knowing his body was different.
He was angry at himself, and angry at the universe, and his parents. He was angry at his friends and angry at strangers. So, he affected a can-do attitude and an arrogance that was all a lie to cover up the fear that he would never, ever recover from the trauma of nearly dying, and losing control over what his body looked like.
At some point, though he couldn’t remember exactly when, it all changed. His can-do attitude became genuine. People still stared, and they asked rude questions, and they felt like they had rights to his body in ways that didn’t apply to other people without visible scars. But he stopped putting weight behind their words, and he started loving himself again. It was before he met Chance, so even though he was cautious with him, when Chance said he wanted Fitz for the person he was, he believed him.
He still believed him, even now, long after he was gone.
“He’ll either figure it out or he won’t,” Fitz told him with a sigh. He shifted forward, then sank to the ground and stretched his legs out toward the fire pit. He kept his knees slightly bent with the balls of his feet pressed to the bricks, and he felt when Antoine shifted over. Suddenly, without real warning, he was between the V of Antoine’s legs.
He turned his head, letting his cheek rest against the rough fabric of Antoine’s jeans, and he took a breath in. Antoine had a unique smell—subtle and soft, and very much him. Not really cologne or soap, it was just sort of clean, and fresh, and nothing like he imagined the city to smell. He liked it, he wanted to wake up to it wrapped around him again.
Tentative fingers touched the back of his neck after a moment, then Antoine
pulled the tie from his hair and set it on the bench. His hair fell in waves, curled from being tied back, and it was cool in the places that hadn’t dried since his shower.
“Do you ever wear it down?” Antoine asked. He brushed through the locks, working a couple snags out with a gentle stroke, and Fitz closed his eyes.
“Sometimes, but I can’t at work, and I’m almost always there.”
Antoine hummed quietly, a little tune Fitz didn’t recognize, sounding like a songbird. “I met Tristian today. I mean, we talked over email before, but he was at that little bookshop and café when I went in.”
“Mm?” Fitz had met Tristian a handful of times, but he didn’t consider them friends. He was rarely in Cherry Creek, and when he was home, he was busy helping Enzo. He was a social guy in the media, but sort of a recluse in town, and Fitz understood that profoundly. “Good conversation?”
“I think so.” Antoine’s fingers dragged along his scalp, and the parts of Fitz’s skin there that were still scarred tingled at the soft touch. He was getting hard in his jeans, and he wondered if Antoine knew how much Fitz liked it slow, liked it easy. “It was nice to talk to someone who hasn’t always lived here. I wanted to know,” he stopped there, and Fitz felt him tense.
“You don’t have to talk about this stuff with me, you know,” Fitz reminded him. “We’re not…”
“I know.” Antoine’s words came out sharply, but his hands were still gentle as they moved down to trace the line of his neck, and over his shoulder. “We’re not really anything, are we?”
“You’re leaving,” Fitz reminded him.
“Yes.”
“You have a life somewhere else.”
Antoine sighed. “Yes.”
Turning his head, Fitz nuzzled the inside of Antoine’s thigh, opening his mouth, scraping his teeth along his jeans. Antoine liked it rougher, meaner, more painful—but he wondered if maybe that was just an act, a way of keeping Fitz at a distance. He eased up and then turned his gaze up to see Antoine staring down with fire in his eyes.
“I want you. I don’t want you to make promises you can’t keep, but I don’t want to keep my hands to myself while you’re around. I don’t want to stop touching you.”
Antoine’s fingers drifted to Fitz’s face, tracing around his lips, tracing down his chin, drawing a line along the center of his throat. “I don’t want you to stop.”
“So, can we agree on that?” Fitz asked.
Antoine’s lip curled up in the corner. “Even though I annoy you?”
“Especially when you annoy me. I can think of a lot of interesting ways to shut you up.”
Antoine groaned, and Fitz was too close to not notice the way his cock thickened in his jeans. “Is that a promise you can keep?”
Fitz rose to his knees. He glanced around and didn’t see Owen anywhere, but he couldn’t guarantee they weren’t being watched. So instead of touching Antoine where he wanted to most, he laid his hands on the tops of his thighs and pressed his fingers in. “Yes. I’m going to prove that to you tonight.”
Antoine dragged his tongue over his lips, then nodded. “Then we have a deal.”
It felt too much like a transaction and nothing like Fitz wanted it to be, but he wasn’t brave enough to ask for more.
Chapter Sixteen
Antoine was grateful for the small reprieve from Fitz’s imposing stare, and the rumble of his voice, and the heat of his hands. He wandered off to, as he said quite succinctly, ‘talk some fucking sense into his nephew’, which left Antoine on his own to catch his breath.
When his dick calmed down, he made his way to the docks and in the distance along the far shore, he could see Ronan and Dmitri walking, heads bowed as they made their way off somewhere. Antoine had no idea what kind of community service work Ronan had up here for him, but he had a feeling it was better than picking up trash or wiping down parking meters. The kid was clearly suffering, and Ronan had an imposing presence, but there was a kindness to him that Antoine could see simmering just beneath his hooded eyes.
The trip out to the lake was unexpected, and even though it was less than twenty minutes from the town center, and only a few hundred feet beyond the trees that lined Collin, Spencer, and Max’s property, it felt like another world. He’d wondered at the stretch of lake when he’d gone out there with Gwen, but standing on the very edge of it, the soft wood beneath his feet, it felt even more powerful.
Antoine was always nervous around water. His mother had taught him practical things like how to cook and wash his clothes without dying everything red. She’d taught him impractical things like how to keep an aloe plant alive even when you have to cart it from the dry deserts of Arizona to the humid swamp of New Orleans. She taught him how to drive, and how to map out a subway route.
But there were things he didn’t know. Like how to start a campfire, and how to swim. Fitz told him he wanted to get out on the kayak like it was nothing, but the thought was vaguely terrifying. He found himself wanting to be braver, though, wanting to dip his toes into the pond of new things, led by Fitz’s hand. And that in itself was enough to get his pulse racing because Fitz had been right about one very important thing—he wasn’t staying.
Turning on his heel, Antoine made his way back to the cabin and found their bags still sitting in the living room. The places were very small with one bedroom, a kitchenette, a two-person dining table, and a sitting area just big enough for a sofa and a small table. It was a comfort in a way, only because the place was too small for Dmitri and Owen, even if they hadn’t wanted to stay on their own.
Antoine was under no illusions of false propriety. He brought condoms and lube with him because he had expectations. But there was also something about knowing Fitz had those same expectations that got his heart racing again. He grabbed the bags and hauled them into the bedroom, then moved back to the kitchen and began to put the food away.
Fitz had shopped practically. Meat and vegetables in a cool, insulated bag which Antoine transferred to the fridge, coffee which he set next to the twelve-cup percolator, gallon of milk, some cheese, bread, bacon, and eggs. Exactly enough for two days and one night, and it felt like too much and not enough all at once.
Antoine wanted a promise of more, and longer, but he couldn’t forget he was in Cherry Creek for work. This was not a vacation. If he hadn’t been sent here by his boss, he might not have known this place was worth visiting. It was small, it was quaint, it was home to good and kind people, and he had no foot in that world.
Now he was wondering how many chances at peace and happiness he’d given up for this false idea of what he thought home meant. An apartment to call his own, a place where his name was on a mortgage and the address on his license, it was no longer enough.
There was some middle ground somewhere, but he was too afraid to look at Cherry Creek. Fitz hadn’t asked him to stay, didn’t say he wanted Antoine to think about sticking around. He simply offered him the only real solution to deal with the feelings that were growing between them.
They’d take what they could get for now, and they’d be prepared for the inevitable goodbye.
He would be gutted, but Fitz was too far under his skin to say no.
With a deep breath, Antoine searched the small cabinets until he found coffee filters, then brewed a pot. He didn’t know how long Fitz would be gone, or what his plans were for when he was done with Owen, but the stuff Antoine was craving couldn’t happen until they turned in for bed.
He pressed his hands to the counter and closed his eyes, counting backward from fifty. It calmed his heart, it centered him. He was never great with meditation the way Marcel had been, but some things helped.
A knock on the door startled him, and he peered around the edge of the kitchen wall to see Ronan standing there, leaning on his crutches, his stance a little stiff and awkward. “Fitz isn’t here, is he?”
Antoine shook his head, motioning him inside. “He’s talking to Owen.”
Ronan nodded like
he understood without needing more detail—which was probably the case. “Cool. Um. I know you’re not here for work, but I had a suggestion”
Antoine waved him off and gestured to the kitchen chair. “I’m free right now if you want to talk?”
Ronan cleared his throat, then crossed the room and pulled the chair out, sinking down into it. He detached the crutches from his forearms and set them aside, then twisted his fingers together like he was nervous. Antoine found himself wanting to find a way to soothe the man’s poor nerves, but they were strangers.
“Greyson,” he said after a beat.
“Rene’s Greyson?”
Ronan’s laugh was soft and a little strained. “Yeah. Parker said he heard you were looking for a photographer. I’ve worked with him. He’s a good guy. He didn’t give me shit about having to cancel on him when I was having bad days.”
“Who gave you,” Antoine asked, then stopped and shook his head. “Sorry, so not my business.”
Ronan’s face softened just a fraction. “It’s fine. I was diagnosed with MS years ago. Everyone knows, but some people are dicks about it. Rene had an issue for a while about me taking this job.”
Antoine felt a surge of anger. “That’s bullshit.”
Ronan let out a small chuckle. “That’s what Fitz said. And my husband. And Greyson, actually. Rene and I aren’t always on the best terms, but it’s fine now.”
“A couple of people already mentioned him,” Antoine said. “I spoke with Rene about it and he said Greyson’s on board.”
Ronan smiled. “Oh. Well…good, uh. Sorry to waste your time…”
Antoine waved him off. “You didn’t. That’s what I’m here for.”
Ronan let out a quiet ha, and shook his head. “You’re not exactly what I expected when Fitz first talked about you.”
“Oh, I have no doubt,” Antoine told him, and that was the absolute truth. “Fitz and I didn’t exactly have an easy beginning.”
Ronan shook his head. “I know that pretty well. Parker and I had a rough start, and it took us forever to get our shit together. Fitz isn’t like that, though. He won’t impose on people, even when they need it sometimes.”